Soaked brown rice is better for you

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A team of Japanese scientists has found that germinating brown rice by soaking it for several hours before it is cooked - enhances its already high nutritional value.

The findings were presented last week at the 2000 International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies.

Germinated rice contains much more fibre than conventional brown rice, say the researchers, three times the amount of the essential amino acid lysine, and ten times the amount of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), another amino acid known to improve kidney function.

The researchers also found that brown rice sprouts - tiny buds less than a millimetre tall - contain a potent inhibitor of an enzyme called protylendopetidase, which is implicated in Alzheimer's disease.

They determined that germination activates enzymes that liberate additional nutrients.

"The birth of a sprout activates dormant enzymes in the brown rice all at once to supply the best nutrition to the growing sprout," explained Dr Hiroshi Kayahara, the lead investigator on the project, and a biochemist from Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan.

Rice, whether brown or white, is a major part of most Asian diets, often eaten with nearly every meal, however the Western diet tends to contain a lot less rice.

To make the rice sprout, the researchers soaked it in water at 32 degrees C for 22 hours. The outer bran layer softened and absorbed water easily, making the rice easier to cook. Cooked sprouted rice has a sweet flavor, the researchers report, because the liberated enzymes break down some of the sugar and protein in the grain.

White rice will not germinate using this process, notes Kayahara.

China, India and Indonesia - home to nearly half of the world's people - are the world leaders in rice production. Expanding populations throughout Asia will require rice production to increase by about a third over the next 20 years, according to the Rice Foundation.

The weeklong International Chemical Congress is sponsored jointly by the American Chemical Society, the Chemical Society of Japan, the Canadian Society of Chemistry, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, and the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry.